Story of a Gladiator Review

"Are You Not Entertained?"

Campaign

November 29, 2019 at 5:05pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a rather interesting brawler title where you play as a Gladiator within three campaigns. Each is slightly different, but basically the same sort of thing throughout. They have unique themes to them being about distinct elements of that era, and all contain twelve setups to battle through. The setups have you aiming to hit three stars as a rating, and that’s based on your performance in battle. There are waves to each of these mission setups, and there are some interesting difficulty spikes which leads to some inconsistent AI moments.

At times they’re super easy and spaced out, other moments they’re bunched up and annihilate you in seconds which is a weird situation to be in. There’s a bit of a narrative to this, but not really. It largely comes down to being a repetitive hack and slash type situation. Aside from the arena of war, you do get to stroll through a town. This place offers many rewards, and goods that you can purchase. Donate for the favor of the gods/crowd or buy better equipment to last longer in battle. Of course, earning gold and XP to level as you go along surviving.

There are many shop options, and these open up as you progress further. I felt they took a bit long to get the stores opened as you end up beating most of the missions prior to even getting access to the various spots to shop. There’s a decent amount of gameplay in this, it just becomes rather repetitive at times and perhaps a tad difficult which will require you to play the same mission many times over to get enough coins to get what you need equipment wise to handle the situation.

Gameplay

This is a 2D brawler title featuring some distinct, but minimal in quantity environments to battle within. It handles well for the most part in terms of the combat and the perks you can get as you acquire new skills. I did have some issues lining up attacks due to the verticality of character placement on the 2D plane, whereas the AI didn’t seem to have problems within the same distance which was annoying.

I loved the gore element, was fun to see the effects of combat on enemies. They definitely don’t hold back, and there’s variation in that as you gather new weapons or skills along the way. The world is detailed, just not varied and that lends further into the aspect of this feeling rather repetitive. I enjoyed playing it, but can say for sure that I grew wary of it over time.

The Conclusion

Story of a Gladiator is an alright brawler title that delivers on game time, but doesn’t necessarily offer a lot of variation in what you’re doing. It was fun to play, but somewhat limited in terms of content. There were many neat stores, a variety of enemies and the waves of foes you fought felt distinct.

That being said, you’re always in the same arena doing the same sort of hacking over and over. It was nice when minor things would change such as rainfall, or rocks being thrown into the ring. It still wasn’t quite enough to continuously make the battles feel fresh. I had some issues with the AI, and difficulty spikes. It’s a neat premise, and makes for a fairly enjoy time.

Read our A Knight's Quest Review
View our Game Hubs

Story of a Gladiator Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Evolve PR

Rating Overall: 6.5